Debate opens final effort to save duty free

PROTAGONISTS in the debate on whether duty-free sales should be abolished in the EU will square up to each other in public next week as the battle intensifies over calls for a reprieve for the multi-million-ecu business.

Representatives from the drinks industry, ferries, airlines and airports will share the platform with top officials from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for indirect taxation (DGXXI) at an all-day conference in Brussels next Wednesday (24 September) which aims to explore the arguments for and against abolition.Time will be called on duty-free sales in the EU in June 1999 unless national ministers change their minds and call on the Commission to reverse its earlier deadline for abolition. The duty free lobby is focusing on the December meeting of EU finance ministers as the last opportunity to salvage the business.

A previous attempt to get ministers to think again during last year’s Irish presidency was unsuccessful. Now, however, the duty free lobby detects a ground swell of support, especially from regions worried about the threat to transport links subsidised by sales of drinks, perfumes and luxury goods.